Peace Offerings
by Charity Angel
Summary: In which Sam takes advantage of being alone. Takes place mid-season 5 (somewhere between 5x08 Changing Channels and 5x18 Point of No Return)


Dean was out at a bar, looking for a hook-up, Cas was… somewhere, and their motel room actually had a kitchenette with a small oven. It was practically luxury by their standards, and Sam figured it was worth a shot.

A walk to the nearest store turned up exactly what he needed, and he set to work. In general, Sam plus kitchen was a bad, bad combination, but this was one thing he could do. He had done it for Jess every year for three years, and she had always appreciated the effort he put into doing something completely unnatural to him.

Dean didn't return, not while Sam's masterpiece was baking and he cleared up the Betty Crocker packaging and the dishes, not even as it cooled and he mixed up the finishing touches. Sam figured Dean had managed to pull (not that he struck out often, granted), which was perfect: he didn't think Dean would understand this. This wasn't something that Winchesters did, as a rule. Birthdays were just something that happened to other people, not them. And cake? Dean didn't understand cake at all.

Finally, the job was done. It wasn't pretty, because Sam just didn't have the tools or the skills to do anything other than just spread the frosting in one thick layer that made his teeth hurt just looking at it, but he hoped it would be appreciated nevertheless.

Finally, he put a single candle into the centre and lit it.

"I don't know if you're watching," he said, stepping back, his eyes on the tiny, flickering flame, "but I think you are. I hope you are, anyway. I know you think you're alone, but you're really not. You're said you're not on either side, and neither are we." Sam sighed. "Maybe I'm just talking to an empty room. Anyway, happy birthday."

"For me, Sammy?"

Sam turned, hardly daring to hope. There had been no sound of rustling wings and air displacement that usually heralded the arrival of an angel, but that didn't mean it couldn't be him. "Gabriel?"

"In the flesh, kiddo," the angel replied. He was eyeing the cake with an odd, almost longing expression. "You really made me a cake?"

Sam nodded, ducking his head and smiling shyly. "It seemed like your kind of thing."

"Cake is absolutely my kind of thing," Gabriel said, his usual smirk making an attempt to creep over his face. "But _devil's_ food cake? Really? You propositioning me or Luci?"

"Chocolate."

That really did get a grin from the rogue archangel. "Good call, Samsquatch. Not that I'm complaining, but what prompted this?"

Sam shrugged. "Hoped you might at least consider helping us out," he admitted. "I'm not asking you to kill either of your brothers: I can't ask that, and I don't even think Dean realised what he was asking. I'm just asking for some help. And maybe some company for Castiel? He's pretty lonely, stuck down here."

Something flickered behind Gabriel's eyes, and Sam dared to hope that maybe something had registered with Gabriel: after all, Cas wasn't Heaven's only runaway. Maybe Gabriel would man up for Cas, if nothing else; be the brother that Cas needed him to be.

"I'll think about it," Gabriel said, his voice that same defeated, hollow sound that had unnerved Sam completely back in Wellington. "No promises."

"Okay. Cake?"

"Lay it on me, kid."

Gabriel tucked into the generous slice of cake with gusto, and Sam took a small piece to keep him company. He was pleasantly surprised with how it had turned out: much better than he had expected from the craptastic oven. He was glad, because he was pretty sure that making a bad offering to a pagan god, even if he was also an archangel, was generally the last thing a person ever did.

"So," Gabriel said, setting his (spotlessly clean) plate aside, his eyes sparkling with familiar mischief, "since you've decided it's my birthday, do I get something to unwrap?"

Sam was sure there was about a mile of innuendo in that comment, but a lifetime with Dean had made him immune to that kind of thing.

"It's not your birthday? No, I know it's not your actual birthday, but it's your feast day, isn't it?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Technically," he allowed. "Not sure what happened there: I used to have my own, in March. But then the church went and chucked me back in with Mikey and Raph. Like I want to share my big day with those ass clowns."

"So we'll do this again in six months," Sam said readily. "And if you play your cards right, you might be able to unwrap a gift then."

Had he really just flirted with an archangel? With the brother of the guy who wanted to ride his ass all the way to Judgement Day? With a _guy_? With the guy who had killed Dean so, so many times back in Florida (even though Sam now realised Gabriel had just been trying to protect them from what was coming, possibly even trying to prevent it)?

Gabriel's eyes sparkled as he smiled, something that looked much more genuine than anything he had seen on the trickster's borrowed face before. "Maybe I'll stick around after all."


End file.
